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Dutifully slapped together and rushed out the door in an attempt to satisfy the allegedly ravenous fans of the firstmovie (review here), Leprechaun 2 was clumsily plopped onto shelves way back in 1994, exactly one year and three months after the release of the original. It’s a good thing too, that Ewok money can’t pay Warwick Davis’ mortgage forever.

“Can we do like, 11 sequels to Willow? For fucks sake, I got full sized bills!!”

The plot-Leprechaun 2 is Leprechaun at his rapiest. The story concerns our little green fuck face and his quest to land a human bride, which he then plans to impregnate and surgically alter, so as to make her appear more Leprechaun like. Why not just date Leprechaun women in the first place? I really don’t know. Maybe there aren’t any. I have no idea how their system works, all I know is that it must be stopped, because it’s already hard enough to meet people in this day and age, we don’t need any percentage of our dating population being kidnapped and mutilated by fucking Leprechauns. Why isn’t Donald Trump working on a wall to separate us from the faerie kingdom? I wish I had the answers, folks, but I do not.

So we start out 1000 years ago in Ireland, on St. Patrick’s Day, which also happens to be Lep’s birthday. What a coincidence! And this is no ordinary birthday, our boy is turning the big one triple zero! To mark the momentous occasion, Leprechaun and his badly abused human slave are out to bamboozle a fair maiden into the loathsome and all binding contract that is matrimony using a time honored tradition of making her sneeze three times. If she sneezes thrice and no one says “God bless you,” her mind, body and soul belong to the Leprechaun, which is a fucked up and nonsensical rule. Even so, Lep’s human slave is happy to participate in the capture of his master’s bride to be, because he’s been promised his freedom once Lep ties the knot- but he suddenly has a change of heart when he learns that the apple of the Leprechaun’s beady little eye is none other than his own daughter, who is hot as hell and just so happens to sneeze pretty often. Shit! That tricky little Leprechaun. Predictably, the slave dude betrays his master and ruins his plan to entrap his bride, an act of cockblockary that costs him his life, and forces Lep to postpone his wedding a full one thousand years, because a Leprechaun is apparently subject to a lot of stupid rules.

So, we fast forward ten centuries to present day (Well- 1994. It WAS present day), and Lep is once again on the prowl to find lady love, this time in twentieth century America. Good luck, asshole. This time he sets his sights on the equally hot descendant of his previous potentially kidnapee, an empty-headed, flinty voiced babe named Bridget, who is already in the early stages of courtship with some bland dumbass called Cody. Cody sucks, folks. He sucks hard. He just doesn’t bring anything to the table, and that’s a problem for Leprechaun 2, because he’s also our protagonist, and nobody in the world would be sad to watch him die gruesomely. On the other end of the spectrum, however, we have Morty, Cody’s money grubbing, alcoholic con-man mentor, who is far and away the best and most enjoyable character in the film. But again, he’s a secondary character, and for most of the film, we’re stuck with fucking Cody.

So, anyway. Lep shows up, he rhymes a lot, Brigitte is kidnapped, and Cody and Morty spring into action to launch an elaborate scheme to somehow rescue Bridgitte, and, if possible, score some of that sweet, sweet Leprechaun treasure. It’s a horror film franchise with a 99% genetic match to a fucking cereal commercial.

The Lucky Charms commercial filmed on Lucky’s 1000th birthday is going to go down very, very differently.

So, the upside here is that there’s actually an idea behind Leprechaun 2’s plot- this is a good, old fashioned cautionary tale against the destructive powers of greed. Lep is greedy, Morty is greedy, Cody has to learn not to be greedy, and if you’re greedy, it doesn’t end well for you. That’s all well and good. Problems pop up, however, when you factor in how the character of Bridgitte is handled- she’s basically immediately downgraded to being an object that men fight over for the entire film. She could just as easily be a 20 dollar bill, or a really great sandwich. To the ultra sensitive eyes of the Millennial, this shit is like, PRIME trigger fuel, but back in ’94, absolutely zero fucks were given. Also, we had better music, and the Sega Genesis. It was an awesome time to be alive.

Another mark against Leprechaun 2 is that ALL the actors are total garbage, except, of course, for Mr. Warwick Davis, and Sandy Baron, who plays Morty. Actually, strike that, Tony Cox has a small role in this one, too- you might remember him from Bad Santa. Cox is a fine actor in his own right, but he doesn’t get much of an opportunity to shine in Leprechaun 2. What he does get to do is to play an integral role in the single most bizarre and disturbing men’s restroom scene I have ever seen this side of No Holds Barred (Review Here).

This isn’t a classic, but by all objective criteria, this is a much better movie than the first. It’s less childish, never as bland, and it features quite a few memorable scenes. Or at least I thought it did. When I rewatched it just now for the purpose of writing this review, I didn’t actually remember ever having seen any of these so called “memorable sequences” ever before, except for one; the one wherein Leprechaun uses his magical illusion powers to make one of Brigitte’s more date-rapey suitors believe he is slowly moving in to motorboat her bare chest, when in actuality, he’s gently ramming his face into the whirling blade of an upturned lawn mower. That was pretty awesome. Later, Lep uses his illusion powers to make out with Cody, though, so that mostly negates the coolness of the lawnmower kill.

Still, it’s mostly good. The one thing this movie has working against it in comparison to the first film is that this is fucking Leprechaun 2. That’s a pretty fatal flaw. With the first film, you could throw that puppy on for an annual “leave it on in the background” type deal at a St. Patrick’s Day party, and people might be onboard with it, but nobody puts on Leprechaun 2 every year. Your friends would just look at you like you were a fucking idiot… and let’s face it… you might be!

In 2005, Daiei’s phenomenal Yokai franchise from the 1960’s enjoyed a brief, regrettable resurgence when famed director Takashi Miike decided to bless the Earth with The Great Yokai War. This unfortunate semi-sequel really only checks off on about half of the things that SHOULD be on the checklist for any Yokai film, and instead injects it with more Miike-isms than were desirable, or appropriate. I’m pretty hot and cold on Miike as a director to begin with, but in the case of The Great Yokai War, I’m straight up irritated.

Worth mentioning; this shit is a kid’s movie, but Miike isn’t the sort of bro you let babysit. The Great Yokai War is way, way scarier than your average children’s film, and periodically, it’s more sexually suggestive, as well. For the adults in the audience, I guess this is SORT OF a win, but it doesn’t really go far enough with the spooks or the sex to satisfy the shameful smut-hounds inside all of us, and I’m damn sure not going to let my kids watch this thing; so in the end we have a movie which lingers pointlessly between two polar opposite demographics. Honestly, that’s Miike to a T.

THE PLOT~ When an evil, ancient sorcerer type dude who dresses really nice decides that he wants revenge against both humans, AND the yokai, he does some stupid bullshit that’s super uninteresting and lame. Then, later on, some little kid finds himself wrapped up in a grand, cookie-cutter fantasy adventure, which forces him to battle alongside the Yokai and save the world. Holy shit, man it’s JUST that boring and generic.

UGH.

So… What, if anything, is GOOD in The Great Yokai War…?

Well, it’s does have a ton of monsters in it, which is definitely a non-negotiable requirementfor this franchise. Not providing this most bare-bones of requirements would be nothing less than inexcusable, and while Miike is ordinarily quick to disappoint/and/or blatantly defy expectations, I am happy to report that in this case, he does indeed bring the thunder, monster style. Thank heavens.

The monsters also LOOK pretty darn good… Well, the Yokai do, at least. They’re mostly live action, and that’s a straight up blessing. The film also has “bad-guy” monsters in it, which are all CG… They fucking suck so bad, but we’ll cover them in greater detail later.

The Great Yokai War also succeeds pretty admirably at replicating the fun vibe seen in Spook Warfare, we get a real feel of urgency, and the human and yokai worlds are intermixed in a way that feels very similar to what the earlier Daiei films did so well. I’d say Miike passes with flying colors in this arena (imagine that!). He also nails the characterization of most of the central cast (with the exception of the bad guys- again, more to come on this), who feel like real, fully developed personalities, full of flaws and peculiar traits which make them feel relatable. Some of the jokes are even funny, the Yokai are all pokey and selfish, unmotivated to do anything even when oblivion is starring them in the face, and the only way to successfully get them to march off to battle is by misleading them into thinking they’ve been invited to a party. It’s weird, but I almost want to throw Miike a thumbs up in regards to how well this is done… But then I remember Ichi The Killer, and I get pissed off again.

Possibly the best thing the movie does, though, is that it actually has a fairly intelectual thesis statement, which is most unexpected in a shabby-ass kid’s fantasy adventure film. At the heart of it, The Great Yokai War is all about the transition from youth to adulthood, the moment when abandon our naïve, youthful perspective, and instead adopt of a more complex understanding of morality, and our roles in society. This is illustrated adequately in the personal journey of our central character, some Japanese Kid, and also mirrored more casually in the journey society has undertaken as it slowly forgets about the traditions of yesteryear, and becomes more preoccupied with the Internet and getting to work on time. As much as this movie full-on pisses me off, The Great Yokai War is ABOUT something, and credit where credit is due, that’s worth pointing out in any fair critique.

Not that that’s out of the way…

What DOESN’T work….?

The first (and worst) mistake Miike makes is that he takes the film out of the period setting seen in the old Daiei movies, and plops it down shittily into modern times. Damn, that sucks. This change allows Miike to flood our screen with his desired bad guys, who, again, are exempt from every single compliment I’ve paid to this film thus far, and it also sets up the comparison between the evolution of Japanese culture, and the journey to adulthood seen in our central character (some Japanese Kid), but it sucks like nobody’s business and isn’t worth it. It’s lame, lame as hell, this film would immediately jump up a full letter grade AT LEAST if it were set in Japan’s feudal era. It’s just so much more interesting.

Second inexcusable flaw: TheCG. ALL of the CG in this film is fucking horrible. It’s just appaling, and really, this is a very common complaint for most any Japanese film in this day and age. It’s actually impossible to look at these characters and not feel a profound distatisfaction with how freaking shitty they all look. It would be enough to ruin the film, if there was even a decent film to ruin, and so I propose a new rule; If you can’t accocmplish your end goal with digital effects that are at least passable, then tough cookies, dude, change your goals. Do NOT launch a project that you can’t realistically pull off and then chuck the dog shit results out into the cinematic community, expecting a pardon. The CG in The Great Yokai War is a hole that would sink any boat; Miike, may God have mercy on your soul, you should have done anything other than this.

THIRD INEXCUSABLE FLAW: The Bad Guys. All of the bad guys in this movie are completely terrible. Firstly, the evil sorcerer dude: his plan is to capture all of the yokai, round them up, and toss them into this miasmic flame he’s got in a furnace (this is actually a yokai as well, oddly enough. It looks like slimy, pink fire.). After that, he tosses garbage in with them, and let’s it all mix together, thereby transforming the yokai into stupid looking steampunk robots that carry out his evil bidding. Re-read that, basically, this guy’s evil scheme is exactly the same thing Dr. Robotnik did back in the Sonic The Hedgehog video games, Sega Genesis era. To be clear, I think that shit was more believable when it was 16 Bit. Also, it had better graphics.

Shitty robots aside, the bad guys are also saddled with those familiar and all too unwelcome anime tropes, which have slowly wormed their way into Japanese live action cinema, and which really are just the worst things ever. His main henchman is easily the most aggravatingly lame character in the entire film, she’s some turncoat Yokai, played by the often obnoxious Chiaki Kuriyama. Sorry, Chiaki, if I hated you in Kill Bill, I’ll probably hate you forever.

If you were wondering who the second lamest character in the film is, it’s probably Sunekosuri, a little fury creature who forms a special friendship with our lead kid early on. Sunekosuri is basically just a B-squad Mogwai that pees a lot. It sucks.

FORTH INEXCUSABLE FLAW: HOLY SHIT, THIS MOVIE IS GENERIC: It doesn’t help that Miike took these neat little movies that were essentially brilliant live action interpetations of Japan’s rich folk lore, and then made a sequel which mashed them into the most generic fantasy storyline ever. The Great Yokai War really feels like it’s less concerned with exploring folklore, and more concerned with being the Japanese Neverending Story. Really, It’s more like The Neverending Story part 5. Probably. I never saw Part 5, but if it exists, I’m sure it sucks, just like The Great Yokai War does.

The last two things I have to say:

1) One of these yokai looks like what you’d get if Mickey Rourke got wasted in a Hawaiin Punch bottling plant and lept into one of the vats.

2) This kid’s shirt says something about midget racing, I shit you not. What in the hell is going on in Japan!??!